The Great Race 2025

Trophy Run and Day 1

Friday, June 20th

Gary and I stood in line with about half the participants in the Great Race waiting to buy a coffee. He asked me where Brad was, and I said “out checking on the gas tank to see if it was leaking.”Gary said “No leaks, I have been out several times to check it.” We feel so lucky to have a friend like Gary who is so kind, thoughtful and always has our back.

We attended the opening meeting (with 500 other attendees) where the race organizers introduced the different sponsors, volunteers in the organization, and welcomed the new and old racers. I think it has been mentioned before, but there are more than 50 volunteers who help make this event happen. We are so grateful to those people who use their vacation to come spend two weeks with us so we can drive around the country in old cars.

After the meeting we made our way out of Bloomington, MN and headed South. We were back in the game, now we just had to perform.

We drove out of town less than 25 minutes and we were among the rolling fields of Minnesota. Everything is so green here. The land of 10,000 lakes is obviously full of lakes, but also is a huge agricultural state. We saw farms that were as large as the eye could see. We looked out at vast swaths of land covered in mostly corn with groves of big bushy trees and evergreens. The farms were dotted with silos, barns and farm houses.

The Trophy Run was short, and we finished at the Minnesota Fairgrounds. This weekend is their “Back to the Fifties” car show.

The car show only allows cars older than 1964. The Great Race cars were given special permission allowing our cars that were as new as 1974 into the event. The Back to the Fifties does not typically allow Ford Mustangs in their event either, but again we were a special exception. The car show has thousands of classic cars over the three day car show. It is like nothing we have ever seen.

You can walk blocks and blocks and cars are stuffed in the fairgrounds (that seems like a weird way to describe placement of cars), but they were everywhere. They were parked on curbs and parked on grass, they were lined up in parking lots and down the middle of the road. It was a magnificent spectacle!

We finished the evening early, and headed back to the hotel. We were starting at the same spot in the morning, and would have more time to look at the cars.

Saturday, June 21

We started the morning by lining up in order of our start and making the thirty minute drive to the fairgrounds. As we neared the fairgrounds the traffic was everywhere.

The Back to the Fifties event attracts people from near and far. People camp at the fairgrounds and set up shade tents to sit under all over while showing their cars.

We made it to the fairgrounds and walked around for a while before our event started. We enjoyed the fantastic people watching and enjoyed other people’s cars.

These were just a small sampling of the cars. In some areas they were grouped by car clubs while others were just randomly parked.

We were given directions to move our car up the road within the fair ground to The Great Race arch.

There we met up with our friends Emily and John. We were so excited to see them again dressed in their Great Race gear and ready to send us off on another adventure.

Thank you Emily and John for all of your efforts. We loved spending time with you!!!

We visited with Emily and John until the start of the rally.

We hopped in our car and shortly after started the rally.

We drove from St. Paul to Rochester, MN. Rochester is best known for the Mayo Clinic.

It was a short day of rallying, but we continued to see farms full of corn. We drove around the fields and crossed the Mississippi River.

We finished the day with zero issues!!! It was a great day!!!